How do Bonuses Work?!?!

When you first visit a new poker site you will notice they offer various bonuses. Small sites which try and bring in big customers will offer a massive welcome bonuses worth thousands of dollars. Other sites such as poker stars may offer much smaller bonuses including no deposit bonuses which are instantly credited to your account when you sign up. How these bonuses works can be overwhelming but this simple guide tell you exactly what you need to know.

A no deposit bonus is exactly what it says on the tin. Simply sign up for a new legitimate account and your money will be instantly added your account. Depending on the site you have joined you can then use this money to enter tournaments or play cash games.

Standard welcome bonuses work in a different way. For example a 200% welcome bonus will give you double the amount of your first deposit as a bonus. So if you deposit $100 you will get $200 is bonus funds. These bonus funds are not credited to your account instantly but set aside in a special bonus account. You must then start playing games in order to unlock your bonus. Every time you play a hand of poker in a cash game or by into a tournament you pay house fees called rake. Whenever you pay rake to the house you will unlock a small part of your bonus. You may need to play a lot of hands at low stakes in order to unlock a big bonus. The fastest way to unlock a big bonus is to play higher stakes cash games as well as multi tables. Rush poker is an ideal way of unlocking a bonus as you can play hundreds of hands per hour in the single table. By playing eight tables of rush poker or your poker room equipment you can unlock a bonus in a matter of hours. Please bear in mind that some poker rooms have different bonus terms and every site will unlock your bonus at a different rate. Some poker sites will unlock your bonus faster if you are a VIP player while others have a varying scale of how quickly you will have your bonus released.